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Visual Rhetoric in Information Design: Designing for Credibility and Engagement

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Visual Rhetoric in Information Design: Designing for Credibility and Engagement Visual rhetoric in information design: designing for credibility and engagement Book or Report Section Accepted Version Moys, J.-L. (2017) Visual rhetoric in information design: designing for credibility and engagement. In: Black, A., Luna, P., Lund, O. and Walker, S. (eds.) Information Design: research and practice. Routledge, Farnham, UK. ISBN 9780415786324 (Part 2, chapter 12) Available at http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/69200/ It is advisable to refer to the publisher’s version if you intend to cite from the work. See Guidance on citing . Published version at: https://www.routledge.com/Information-Design-Research-and-Practice/Black-Luna-Lund- Walker/p/book/9780415786324 Publisher: Routledge All outputs in CentAUR are protected by Intellectual Property Rights law, including copyright law. Copyright and IPR is retained by the creators or other copyright holders. Terms and conditions for use of this material are defined in the End User Agreement . www.reading.ac.uk/centaur CentAUR Central Archive at the University of Reading Reading’s research outputs online 1 Visual rhetoric in information design Designing for credibility and engagement Jeanne-Louise Moys Genre plays a central role in defining the visual conventions designers draw upon for presenting information and influencing the ways in which users, in turn, experience and interpret information. Drawing on evidence from user research, this chapter examines the rhetorical associations of some of the typographic and layout conventions associated with good practice in information design. In 2013, Lippincott redesigned UK energy provider npower’s customer energy bill (Figures 1a–d). npower’s press release declared that the redesign aimed to ‘cut out the clutter’, enable different kinds of reading strategies (particularly skimming and checking), and ‘prioritise’ the information that ‘customers want to know’ (npower, 2013). It also stated that the redesign was intended to build relationships and trust ‘through the provision of clear, simple and easy to understand information’. Figures 1a–d Lippincott’s redesigned npower energy bill (Reproduced with permission from npower and Lippincott) These statements highlight how information design can facilitate particular kinds of engagement and contribute to ethos – the way in which the provider of the information is perceived. They also reveal some principles of information design such as: clarity, simplicity and functionality. Applied to the presentation of information, these principles evidence particular typographic and layout conventions. Using good practice guidelines to highlight visual characteristics of information design, this chapter explores how these conventions convey particular rhetorical impressions Genre and visual rhetoric Building on Bonsiepe’s 1965 (reprinted in Bonsiepe, 1999a) paper on visual-verbal rhetoric, a number of writers within communication and design disciplines have framed design as visual rhetoric1. Drawing on a definition of ‘rhetoric as persuasion’, 1 Examples include: Buchanan (1985), Kinross (1989), Trummel (1988), Kostelnick (1990; 1996), Kostelnick and Hassett (2003), Bennett (2006), and De Almeida (2009). 2 analyses of visual rhetoric are often used to explain and critique design’s powers of persuasion for advertising, marketing and social campaigns (Margolin, 1979; Blake, 1981; Forlizzi and Lebbon, 2006; Tyler, 2006). Visual rhetoric has also been applied to a wider range of design artefacts, including: manuscripts (Connors, 1983), posters (Ehses, 1984), and railway timetables (Kinross, 1989). Kostelnick and Hassett (2003) explore visual rhetoric within a framework that focuses on the conventional nature of visual communication. They contend that genres provide ways of identifying shared meaning, suggesting that ‘visual language clings to a genre like a magnet’ (Kostelnick and Hassett, 2003, 97). Graphic conventions acquire rhetorical meaning through their association with the visual characteristics of document genres (Waller and Delin, 2010). Genre associations also help users decide how to engage with information. Waller (2012, 242) emphasizes how the graphic presentation and layout of everyday genres, such as magazines and user guides, imply particular engagement strategies: When readers see them, they know what they are, and what to do with them. The graphic layout of such genres effectively contains the rules or affordances for their use: Engaging layouts and large headings invite the magazine reader to browse; the orderly layout of a user guide invites systematic reading, referencing a task outside of the text through diagrams, and providing large numerals as a visual target to the returning reader. Waller (2012) discusses the creation of graphic argument across a range of print and digital examples. He demonstrates how changes in layout, for example in redesigned functional documents or between a printed and digital newspaper article, enable users to adopt particular reading strategies and may clarify or obscure relationships between information2. Similarly, improving the layout of charts and diagrams (see Figures 2a and 2b) can also help to visually articulate relationships between information and make information more accessible at a glance. Figure 2a and 2b CIDR’s redesign of the Dementia flow chart shows how spatial organisation supports graphic argument and ease of reading 2 Waller’s work builds on and contributes to a body of cross-disciplinary work that demonstrates how the presentation of text suggests particular kinds of reading strategies and articulates graphic argument across a range of genres and artefacts. This body of work incorporates research from within linguistics, psychology, typography, and technical communication. Examples include: Bernhardt (1985), Hartley (1980; 1985), Hartley and Burnhill (1977), Kostelnick (1990; 1996), Twyman (1982; 1985; 1986), Walker (1982; 2001), Waller, (1982; 1985; 2012), and Waller and Whalley (1987). 3 In this respect, definitions of visual rhetoric as ‘the art of directed communication’ (Kinross, 1989, 376) are more readily applicable to information design than definitions emphasizing persuasion. From this perspective, visual rhetoric is used to explore how the presentation and organization of information creates meaning. Similar to Bonsiepe’s (1999b, 66) description of ‘semantic typography’, some rhetorical approaches consider how ‘the differentiation of the text supports the interpretation’. Kostelnick (1990, 1996) describes two sets of rhetorical functions in text design: structural and stylistic. These are summarized in Table 1. [please typeset table in two columns] Table 1 Rhetorical functions in text design Structural functions • Reveal document structure • Develop cohesion • Enable expansion or contraction Stylistic functions • Create interest • Convey tone • Establish credibility • Signal emphasis • Indicate usability (After Kostelnick 1990; 1996) Kostelnick’s distinction between structural and stylistic rhetorical functions shows how visual rhetoric can be analysed both at the level of graphic argument and in relation to users’ affective impressions of visual presentation: Since seeing precedes reading, the reader’s first glance influences the information processing that follows. The balanced arrangement of visual elements on the page, the contrast among these elements, the efficient use of space – together these create a unified visual display that predisposes the reader to respond [strategically] to the information in the document. Such responses are often dismissed as subjective and impressionistic … but they must be regarded as intrinsic to the rhetoric of the document (Kostelnick 1990, 200). Getting the right ‘look and feel’ for a project is usually considered a central concern in branding discourse. In contrast, information design tends to prioritise functionality and accessibility. Typographic decisions are focused primarily on legibility and functionality rather than typeface personality – the emphasis is on clarity not identity3. 3 Information designers often work within a different range of parameters to their branding colleagues. Many information design projects, such as consumer bills and public sector forms, are for clients with 4 Thus, information design’s focus on usability means that information design is often assumed to have a ‘look and feel’ that is visually neutral in comparison to other genres. Kinross and the ‘rhetoric of neutrality’ At the first Information Design conference in 1984, Robin Kinross queried whether the presentation of information can be neutral. His paper was subsequently published in Design Issues as ‘The rhetoric of neutrality’ (1985 reprinted 1989). Building on Bonsiepe, and considering differing definitions of ‘rhetoric’, Kinross argued that information-focused genres such as railway timetables are not devoid of visual rhetoric. Kinross (1989, 374) proposed that ‘by the simple fact that they organize and articulate and give visual presence to information’ genres such as timetables ‘use rhetorical means’. In order to communicate with ‘eloquence’ (Kinross 1989, 375), timetables and other information design genres use structural devices such as tabular arrangements (see Figure 3). Figure 3a and 3b Tabular arrangement in railway timetables (Reproduced with permission from the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication) Kinross extended his discussion of visual rhetoric beyond the typographic and structural articulation of information. Kinross (1989, 385) criticised information designers
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